„war etwas ganz tolles“ – Erzählungen über die Grenzöffnung 1989 im Kontext frame-semantischer und korpusbasierter Analysen

Abstract

For more than 30 years, the inner-German border as a physical border between the GDR and FRG no longer exists. From a linguistic perspective, “unification” can be assumed. The linguistic differences between the former East and West Germans are smaller than those between the various German dialect speakers (cf. i. a. Hellmann 1984; Gärtig/Plewnia/Rothe 2010; Plewnia 2015). However, categories such as Ossi and Ostdeutsch or Wessi and Westdeutsch can still be found today, although the terms for the inhabitants of the GDR (Ossi, Ostdeutsch, Ostler etc.) are more productive. The physical inner-German border seems to have turned into a wall in people’s minds.

This article takes up the current discourse and asks about the underlying patterns and frames that constitute this mental border or enable its reconstruction. Autobiographical narrative interviews with people of two age groups who grew up or were socialised at the former inner-German border serve as a basis for this.